Editor's Note: Tech Triangulation and Linux

Shades of Brazil

September 28, 2000

By
Michael Hall

In this week's .comment, Dennis Powell recounts a Linux/cable modem
nightmare that I will not even attempt to top. It's a good read, full
of the sort of pathos we're all familiar with when it comes to making
our beloved Linux machines get along with a world that isn't quite
convinced of our legitimacy (or market share). Reading his account,
though, took me back to my own broadband tribulations:

I like to collect Linux misinformation. Like the coworker who once
told me Linux was an older version of UNIX that crashes if you try to
use it to look at graphics, or as a web server.

You get used to a certain amount of it in your dealings with people
who aren't particularly familiar with Linux. You learn to do your
research before going to the store to pick up a new piece of hardware,
because the clerk will tell you with a straight face that using a
particular piece of hardware with Linux will cause early hair loss and
chronic flatulence on top of voiding your warranty. So when it came
time to order a DSL connection for my home, I did a month of research
on all the potential hurdles and roadblocks before I ever started on
what I've taken to calling "technician triangulation."

Tech triangulation is a simple procedure. You just figure out what
you want to know, call the support line three times (making sure you
get a different technician each time) and ask your questions. If
you're lucky, they all agree with each other. If not, go with the
majority unless two of them are clearly dim bulbs and the third is a
compulsive "Linux mentioner" who's looking for his crack at moving off
the help desk by antagonizing random customers with comments like
"It's supposed to work that way, but I don't know... I run, uhhh,
Linux."

With DSL, the big concern is the protocol your machine uses to talk to
the provider. In many cases, the DSL modem just plugs into the wall,
you plug your NIC into the modem, and you're golden. Well, as golden
as it gets. In other cases, ISP's are going with PPP Over Ethernet
(pppoe), in which case it isn't quite as straightforward a
proposition: your machine has to negotiate a PPP connection via an
ethernet interface using CHAP or PAP for authentication. My ISP uses
both at random.

Thanks to the folks at Roaring Penguin, pppoe is fairly well supported
under Linux. People with RPM-based distros can download the binary,
install it, run a configuration script, and off they go. Others will
find compiling from source simple enough, and the RPM is distro
agnostic enough that it's a good candidate for alien. Roaring Penguin
even provides rudimentary firewalling scripts that are strict enough
to keep you safe for a while until you figure out what you're doing.

So I called the tech people at the ISP three times, and found myself
thinking of Terry Gilliam's Brazil. The tech support
people were the duct maintainers at Central Services, I was Sam, and
there were no renegade plumbers coming down on rappelling lines
anytime soon.

The first call ended quickly: "If you attempt to run Linux with this,
it won't work. You'll forfeit your deposit, too. And your hair will
fall out."

The second was a little better: "You can run Linux with our service,
but if the installer sees Linux on your machine, he'll leave. You'll
forfeit your deposit. Your hair won't fall out, but I can't guarantee
that. I wasn't here. I didn't say this."

The third was best: "We have Linux talking to the service in our
lab... it works great. You can download a pppoe client for your
machine, but you'll have to look it up on Google. The installers
don't mind dual-boot machines, but have it booted into Windows in case
you get a belligerent one. Oh... I wasn't here. I didn't say this."

So, armed with the knowledge that it could at least work, I placed my
order (with a clerk who made me affirm that I had no intention
whatsoever of attempting to use the service with anything other than
Windows 95 or 98), and waited for the installation.

The day the installer arrived, I was in high spirits. I'd had the box
of DSL goodies the ISP had sent out for a week, already installed the
NIC that came with it, and had the DSL modem unpacked and ready. At
the time, I had a small Windows partition I'd booted into to keep the
installer from walking out on me.

Over the course of the two-hour installation, I
learned a lot from the installer while I tried to
pump him for information about how the service
worked once a connection had been negotiated.

Linux, it turns out, is "DHCP based, which is incompatible with TCP."
Furthermore, Linux "doesn't have the power to handle the fastest
connections." Oh, he allowed, it might cope with a 384k connection,
but the 1.5 meg service I'd ordered would slaughter it.

"Funny," I said, "I write about Linux and I was never aware of this
limitation."

"Oh, yeah," he replied, "Linux is like that. Of course, it's been
about ten years since I used it, but it can't be any better. It's
just sorta built like that. You wouldn't be able to surf the web with
it anyhow... it can't handle graphics. That's why I'm Microsoft
certified now... I'm one of a special group that got to beta test
Windows 98 for free!"

"Oh... so, I guess I can't boot into Linux to use the service?"

"Naw. I could make it work for you, but it ain't worth your time. I
install it for kids at the university sometimes, but I have no idea
what they think they're gonna use it for. It'll just crash when they
try to surf the web."

"No browser anyhow, right?"

"Yeah."

The software provided to connect under Windows was truly ugly, by the
way. A clunky "control panel" that dominated a healthy chunk of the
display and seemed to barf and require a reset of the DSL modem the
first three times. Furthermore, because the customer might be
disturbed at the thought there was something besides a fast dial-up at
work, it used on-screen information that implied it was actually
dialing a phone.

"There ya go... Lemme show ya!" the installer exclaimed when it was
done installing.

He had me point the browser at a download site where I was told to
download a Quake demo. It wasn't so fast the first time, but he
wasn't going to leave until he'd demonstrated just how fast the
connection was. I could have told him to leave, but that would mean
that he couldn't complete the special checklist, which would mean if
he screwed up the installation I wouldn't get my deposit back and I'd
have to pay service charges to fix it. I was in his thrall. I tried
to see where on the list it said "Download Quake," but he wouldn't let
me look long enough.

Three attempts later, he was happy. I had a Quake demo plus two
partial Quake copies to keep me company. Then he installed a
graphical traceroute tool to show me how fast the pingtimes were. It
locked the box up hard three times, so we sat staring at the computer
while it ran checkdisk each time, him refusing to leave until I could
see the graphical traceroutes for myself. I breathed a silent prayer
of thanks the fourth time, when it worked. It reported Slashdot as
being somewhere off the coast of South America... but it worked. I
told him Slashdot was run by Brazilians, so he felt comfortable
leaving.

After he left, I sat down to the machine, booted into Linux, quietly
fdisked the Windows partition and my three Quake downloads into
oblivion, and fired up the pppoe client.

Worked out of the box.

I still have all my hair.

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